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How to deduct orders in SKULabs
How to deduct orders in SKULabs

Per-shipment vs. per-scan and other stock deduction methods

Updated over a week ago

Warning: Do not change how you ship or deduct orders without contacting SKULabs in chat or email at [email protected] with 24-48 hours notice.


SKULabs offers multiple ways for your team to efficiently pick, pack, and ship while maintaining accurate inventory by deducting orders. Deduction is required when using SKULabs as a master of inventory to prevent overselling.

Per-shipment stock deduction (default)

The default method of deducting inventory is to simply connect your shipping carriers and create shipments on orders within SKULabs. Stock is deducted and your sales channel is automatically notified with the tracking number.

Add manual shipments to orders

Simply add a Manual Shipment to an order to deduct stock and notify your channel. This method is helpful if you create shipping labels outside of SKULabs, but still want to process orders within.

Per-scan stock deduction

Deduct inventory immediately as you scan or manually verify order items from the locations your pickers select during normal order fulfillment process. This method is another good alternative for deduction even if you create labels outside of SKULabs.

You can change your deduction setting on the inventory settings page. Warning: Changing your deduction method while orders are partially picked will result in incomplete deduction. Before changing this setting to "per scan", create a shipment on any partially picked orders to close out any pending deduction. Alternatively, reset any in progress orders prior to changing deduction methods to ensure complete deduction.

Bulk inventory deduction

A quick, simple, and effective tool on the orders page that deducts unshipped inventory for selected orders. Great for handling any orders fulfilled outside of SKULabs or through external methods.

Scanning on the Deduct tab

The Deduct tab is a lightweight tool that allows you to quickly scan item barcodes and deduct stock in bulk from your catalog's inventory. Often used for scanning out ad-hoc adjustments, packaging, blemished items, and more.

Import shipments via CSV

Deduct stock by creating and uploading a CSV file to the Shipments Import page. This method allows you to create shipments on existing orders in bulk.

The available fields are:

  • Store

  • Order #

  • Carrier

  • Service

  • Tracking #

  • Tracking URL (Optional)

  • Cost - of postage

  • SKU

  • Quantity

What if I cannot ship or process orders within SKULabs?

Even if you create shipping labels outside of SKULabs, processing orders within SKULabs itself is the best recommendation to keep a complete record of your shipment and inventory history as well as ensuring stock counts remain accurate.

If you cannot possibly process or deduct orders within SKULabs, a few other deduction methods are available, but may not be universally compatible with all operations or plans:

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